Since 2011 - by Anne Morddel, author and BCG-certified genealogist based in France

French Jewish Genealogy

Some time ago, we were contacted by the art historian, Sara M. Picard, to help with research into a French immigrant to Louisiana named Jules Lion. It was such a fascinating case that we were more than happy, nay, keen to be involved. We hunted through cemeteries, French passenger lists, Consistoire registers, naturalisation files, commercial directories, notarial records, and many more. Dr. Picard quite brilliantly combined the French research with her much larger amount of research into American records to prove a remarkable point -- that historians had mistaken the racial background of Jules Lion.

Her article, "Racing Jules Lion", appeared recently in Louisiana History, the Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association. Dr. Picard very kindly has obtained permission from that publication to allow you, Dear Readers, to access and read the article in its entirety here. If you have ever been puzzled by aspects of an ancestor's identity in your research, or if you simply want to have an amazing read about one of Louisiana's earliest photographers, do read this excellent study.

Many, many thanks, Dr. Picard, for allowing us to publish the link on The FGB.

Pre-1808 documentation of French Jewish families is rare and not easy to find. While legally required parish registrations in France began, more or less, in 1539, these pertained to Catholics only. Protestants maintained their own registrations as best they could. Yet, there was no general law across the country that required that Jewish people also register their births, marriages and burials. Additionally, before the Revolution, Jewish people were often considered as nationals of the region or country of origin and so, in documentation they are referred to as a type of foreign resident, even though this was not their actual legal status.

In the south of France, the assumed place of origin of much of the local Jewish population often was Iberia. In Bayonne, in the department of Pyrénées-Atlantiques, the Jewish quarter of the eighteenth century was within the parish of Saint-Esprit, where some registers refer to les juifs while others to les portugais. Still others use the more common French name of Israélites. Whatever the term, these registers are a rare and precious resource and it is quite nice indeed to find some of them online on the website of the Departmental Archives of Pyrénées-Atlantiques. More difficult to search but also very useful are certain tax and notarial records. A few of the records on Jewish people that may be found on the AD Pyrénées-Atlantiques at the moment are:

For those who wish to dig deeper, try using any of the terms juif/juifs, portugais, espagnoles, Israélite/Israélites in the Recherche Simple box and pore over each and every one of the results. If your French Jewish ancestors were in Bayonne for a significant number of generations, the finest resource is Léon's Histoire des Juifs de Bayonne, which may be downloaded in its entirety here, or read online here.

Nice research opportunities, especially for those hoping for a Spanish passport.

In the past two or three years, we have been contacted by numerous people who have become quite excited by the announcement of the government of Spain that it would award Spanish citizenship to anyone who could prove descent from one or more of the Jewish people expelled from that country in 1492, and who could demonstrate a knowledge of Spain's culture, heritage and geography. The hopeful applicants who have contacted us tend to have no knowledge of the language or country and to have had an inexpensive DNA test which indicated that they may have had ancestors from the Iberian peninsula in the fifteenth century.

A few have had good reason to contact us, as they did have French ancestors, but why most of them came to us is a mystery. They were lacking a good 350 years of documentation and what they did have gave no indication that France was a good place to begin their research. In our mystification, we have referred them to others and now, we give a link to an article about the first person to succeed at this most difficult of genealogical endeavors, with details of the organisation that helped him to do so. We will be referring all future comers to this post. Thank you.

You know how it is when the research bug bites and it is impossible to stop. More, when the discoveries come thick and fast, you think you have struck some sort of gold, as indeed it can be -- a lovely, golden flow of discovery of history and ideas and family connection. In short, we have found a gem we wish to share about French Jewish genealogical research: La Revue des études juives, begun in Paris by the Société des Etudes Juives in 1880 and still going strong. Long articles, scholarly and erudite -- especially in the earlier volumes -- provide abundant information that is not only historical but often genealogical. We give examples of titles:

Some articles continue through many issues and really are books. All quote their sources and, if the sources are in the archives, give the facility and the code. Articles are not only in French. Many are in German, some in English, some in Hebrew, some in Italian. Nor is the subject matter limited to France. It is those that are in French, however, that seem to contain more information that can help the genealogist. Correspondence and many other documents are copied in full. In at least one article a complete list of names from a census is given. Individual court cases are described. People's lives are explored in detail. For those who cannot travel to France to use her many archives to research their French Jewish genealogy, this publication can be a gift indeed.

The Revue can be found around the Internet. For ease of use, we prefer to use the Index to the first fifty volumes via the Internet Archive. It is an excellent index, with headings for both authors and subjects. Thus, just looking up a city, such as Bordeaux or Lyon, or a region, such as Lorraine, will give a list of articles. Then, we go to Scribd, where the wonderful folks at Patrologia, bless them, have uploaded all the early volumes of the Revue.

In 1913, the Society of the History of Paris and of the Ile de France brought out a book by Paul Hildenfinger, Documents sur les Juifs à Paris au XVIIIe Siècle : Actes d'Inhumation et Scellés. This is doubly a treasure, since pre-1871 Paris genealogy and pre-Revolutionary French Jewish genealogy are both very difficult areas of research.

The author, who spent months researching the documentation of the deaths of Jewish people in Paris in the eighteenth century, did not live to see the publication. Originally from Lille, he trained at the Ecole des Chartes as an archivist and paleographer, then worked at the Bibliothèque Nationale. The research for this book did not come from his work but from his personal interest.

As Hildenfinger explains in his Introduction, eighteenth century French law stated that priests or curates were required to maintain registers of births, marriages and burials of every member of their parish. The law did not extend to non-Catholics, who were refused burial in Catholic cemeteries. While many Protestant pastors kept near-identical registers, the leaders of other religions often did not, or those records have not survived.

However, it was also required by law that the police were not to allow any burial without some sort of record of death. This particular law, enacted in 1736, was primarily intended for the documentation of Protestants and stated that, where there was no Catholic parish record of burial, an affidavit concerning the deceased was required before burial could take place. It ended up being applied to those of other religions, including Greek Orthodox and Jewish, as well as to a variety of foreigners, duellists and suicides.

It was the local police superintendent, of whom there were about twenty in Paris, who went to the home of the deceased and wrote the necessary documentation. Those documents that remain are in the Y series of the Archives nationales and it is these that Mr. Hildenfinger abstracted. Generally, he tells, the documentation includes:

The declaration of death, by witnesses, neighbours or friends, whether Christian or Jewish, with their full names, the places of origin, their addresses in Paris. Sometime there may also be their professions and their relationship to the deceased. They signed, in French or Hebrew.

The death report and identification of the corpse, with the full name, age, address, religion, and place of origin of the deceased.

After 1737, comments by the Attorney General of Châtelet, to whom the report had to be submitted, giving the name of the deceased and the place of burial.

The police authorisation for burial.

The scellé refers to the documentation concerning the sealing off by law of the deceased's property in order to protect the heirs and/or creditors. Often, it was used by the state to take possession of the property.

In all, Hildenfinger found 176 documents about 171 Jewish persons who died and describes them fully. The index is excellent. The Introduction could be used as a research guide to the subject on its own. Read it on Gallica:

This year, the Day of Remembrance of the victims of the Shoah, Yom HaShoah, falls on the 8th of April. As before, at the Mémorial de la Shoah in Paris, the names of all French Jewish victims will be read aloud. The abomination that is human brutality when expressed as genocide is chilling and, it seems, will not go away any time soon.

All that any of us can do in the face of evil is good. There are times when we think that the search for our ancestors, and our need to find them and remember them, springs from not only obsessive research, but from a deep feeling of sympathy with and for those who are gone and cannot ever again speak for themselves. To be sure, genealogy is not charity but perhaps thoughts of kindness for the dead do lead to acts of kindness for the living.

One of the most important websites dedicated to the preservation of the culture and memory of France's Jewish people is the site du Judaïsme d'Alsace et de Lorraine. It began as a website only, and not as the Internet presence of an association (though it now has such an association of supporters) in 1998 and very quickly grew to be the centrepiece of research and historic preservation of the Jewish people of Alsace and Lorraine. Founded by Michel Rothé, one of the co-authors of the seminal book "The Synagogues of Alsace and Their History", the site is dense with information.

Scholarly articles on many aspects of the communities and their history

a section on genealogy, including a beginner's guide and two discussions of marriage contracts, along with notices placed by people seeking genealogical data and/or connections

It is a very well constructed site and could well lead you to some research success. For those of you who may have photographs, postcards, or any documents relating to the pre-war history of the Jewish communities of Alsace and Lorraine, sharing copies via this site would be of help to all.

As individuals within a species, we are all pretty much identical; no one would mistake any of us for an elephant or a spider or a barracuda. Yet, how we focus on the differences of our fellow humans, blinding ourselves to the similarities and thus, to the possibility of unity. Dividing ourselves into groups based upon minute differences, our larger and dominant groups make life hell for the smaller groups, who in turn, make life hell for groups smaller than they. One would laugh, if only not to weep.

French Jewish people, in an effort to assimilate, have often changed their surnames to sound more French. After the Second World War, government officials, at the local level most often, urged Jewish residents and immigrants to change their surnames. About five per cent did so. Many of their descendants now wish to change their names back to those of their grandfathers, even though they are sympathetic to those who made the changes. As one descendant said of his grandfather to a Los Angeles Times reporter: "He never complained [about being encouraged to change his name]. Remember these were people who, after what they had been through, just wanted to live in peace. They would do anything to blend in."

At the time of the changes, some were told that their children could, on reaching the age of majority, choose to take back the family's previous surname. This was simply not true. One must apply for a court order -- something not lightly given in France -- and have a very good reason to change one's name. In a 2010 article for Libération, three people explain why their "Frenchified" names make them feel cut off from their roots.

We read on the very fine blog of Janice Sellers, Ancestral Discoveries, that the Pantin cemetery was embarking on a rash of reclamations of plots. We thought we should investigate. We dragged our weary self out to the near end of Line Seven on the Métro and hiked a long, traffic-blasted and gusty avenue to the entry. It looks rather battered but elegant in the photo above. Here is what one truly sees on approaching the entry:

Four or five disembowelled sofas, rubbish bins, and a wide selection of empty beer bottles make for a different sort of depression from that usual to cemetery visits. Cross the threshold, however, and one is transported from grim poverty to grand avenues of beautiful gardens and mature trees. There are more than eight thousand trees, and the air is correspondingly cleaner than out on the road. A very nice place to spend eternity.

The Pantin cemetery is outside of the city of Paris, on the border between Pantin and Bobigny. Administratively, however, it is one of the Paris cemeteries. It is the largest cemetery in France and in Europe. It opened on the 15th of November, 1886, and has over 200,000 graves in 180 divisions, of which many are designated as Jewish divisions. When we asked about the threatened graves, we were told that in no case is an entire division or even a section threatened, but only individual graves. These include Jewish, gentile and other religions among them.

Graves and tombs in France are considered inviolable, except as concerns the bureaucrats, who can do as they please with the dead as well as with the living. The space in cemeteries could once have been bought as concessions à perpétuité, e.g. forever. Descendants merely had to keep up the tombs (they have a tendency to cave in if not maintained, and can be quite dangerous).

The population explosion having effected the cemeteries along with everything else involving humanity, the problem of overcrowded cemeteries has become urgent. In 2002, it was announced that all of the Paris cemeteries were full; there was absolutely no place for anyone to be buried. The press was full of comic headlines saying such things as "Death in Paris is Forbidden".

The solution has been to review the maintenance and condition of all of the graves taken as concessions à perpétuité, and there are reportedly some 1,157,533 in Paris, and reclaim those that have clearly been forgotten. There are rules:

the grave has to have been abandoned for a minimum of thirty years

there must be an effort to find the family lasting at least four years

there must be a public notice that the grave is planned to be reclaimed unless family come forward

if the family do come forward, they have up to three years to make repairs; if they fail to do so, the bones will be exhumed and sent to the ossuary, as we have explained here previously

As repairs can cost up to 10,000 euros, one can be sympathetic to the families that have let the graves fall into disrepair. Nevertheless, there is a waiting list of dead, we read, though we cannot work out just where they are waiting, and the pressure on the cemetery administrators is intense. Many Jewish families want plots in the Jewish sections, many Muslim families want plots facing Mecca, many Christian families want plots in the Christian sections. Everyone wants plots near to relatives. Consequently, efforts to reclaim space have increased significantly. Hence, the blog post by Ms. Sellers and other notices in the press.

Pantin is run as are the other cemeteries. The summer and winter hours correspond to the hours of daylight. To find a grave, you must have the full name of the deceased and the date of burial or at least that of death. With that information, you can go to the office, just at the entry, and request directions to the grave. The guards wait outside and in a most kind and unParisian way will offer to drive you to the correct section, if you feel it may be too far to walk. The cemetery is so large that cars are permitted, should you wish to take one.

There is no online list of all those buried at Pantin, but Ms. Sellers's post does give a list of the names on those Jewish graves that are at risk of reclamation. If you think that your ancestor may be at Pantin, and you wish to plunk the small fortune to protect his or her grave for a bit longer, you can write to or ring the administration:

The Alliance Israélite Universelle (AIU) is an international organisation founded in France in 1860, after a period of nasty anti-Semitism and a celebrated case of the forced conversion of a child to Christianity. The goal of the founder, Adolphe Crémieux, was to encourage education -- with an emphasis on the idealism of the French Revolution -- for all Jewish people. The AIU has been building schools for Jewish children all over the world -- particularly in North Africa -- for the past 150 years, more than twenty years longer than the Alliance Française. It was the first international Jewish organisation and has had significant influence. A history of the AIU, edited by André Kaspi, entitled plainly Histoire de l'Alliance israélite universelle de 1860 à nos jours, was published last year. (See an interview with the Kaspi here.)

From its beginning until the First World War, the AIU published the Bulletin de l'Alliance Israélite Universelle which, because it listed so many of its members and their contributions, is of enormous value in French Jewish genealogy, as described by the National Library of Israel:

"The Bulletin is also a rich source of information on the inner lives of the Jewish communities. Every issue contains detailed lists of AIU members in every city, continuous information reported from local committees spread over five continents, lists of donors or people who contributed to solidarity activities initiated by the Alliance for the benefit of Jews who had fallen victim to misfortune or violence, and more. Statistical data on the AIU schools provide accurate information about the number of schools in each city, the number of students, the make-up of the teaching staff, and the schools’ budgets."

Until recently, the only way to read the Bulletin was to visit the library of the AIU in Paris, one of its schools around the world, or a library that has maintained a collection of it. Now, it is available online at the above mentioned National Library of Israel under its category Historical Jewish Press. The description and search pages are in Hebrew, English or French. The indexing is quite good. As there are so many lists of names, the results are usually many and some search refinement is required. Even so, it will be a slog through many pages, but could be a happy one for the genealogist.

The Revolution brought full citizenship to Jewish French on the 27th of September, 1791. Napoleon did not retract it (as he retracted the abolition of slavery) but he did issue an edict that has proved invaluable for genealogists (given above in the Bulletin des lois). With the Décret de Bayonne, issued on the 20th of July, 1808, he ordered that all Jewish people in France or immigrating permanently to France who did not have a fixed and hereditary surname be required to choose one.

These registres d'options de noms 1808 became a de facto census of the Jewish people of France (to be followed in some places by a real census a year later). The numbers are interesting. According to a list in the Archives nationales (code F19 11010) there were 46,054 Jewish people in France who chose permanent names. The majority were in the departments of Bas-Rhin, Haut-Rhin (with some very legible examples for the city of Mulhouse), and Moselle. In each, the head of a family, usually the husband and father, gives for each family member his or her name, date and place of birth, and the surname and forenames chosen. The registrations have the appearance and structure of any other acte d'état civil in 1808.

The originals are in the communal or the departmental archives of the region where they were first recorded. Summaries and reports on these options are in the Archives nationales. As with any such documentation, not all have survived. Those in Strasbourg were burned in the bombing during the Franco-Prussian War, for example, and those of Moselle were destroyed during the Second World War.

The excellent Cercle de Généalogie Juive offers for sale from their (bilingual!) site volumes by the late Pierre Katz, an expert on Alsatian Jewry, of extracts of the data from the registres d'options de noms for the departments of Bas-Rhin, Haut-Rhin, Moselle, and Meurthe-et-Moselle. Most helpfully, they also have an alphabetical list on the website of all the surnames for Bas-Rhin, showing the villages where they were declared.

According to many, the registres d'options de noms 1808 are where French Jewish genealogy begins.

Subscribe to the FGB

Websites of the Departmental Archives

(01) AinCapital: Bourg-en-Bresse.
Archives Numériques Départementales de l'Ain. Online: parish registers, civil registers, censuses. Wonderfully they also have put up the Tables de Succession, (lists of those who died and whether or not they left a will) and the Matricules, (military recruitment documents) for some communes. Being added in stages are the all-important notarial document registers.

(02) AisneCapital: Laon.
On a very nice site that works well: parish and civil registrations, land records and maps, and many images of historical and genealogical value. There is a nice section on genealogy to help one get started. Additionally, it is possible via a different search page to see all documentation relating to a particular commune.

(03) AllierCapital : Moulins
The parish and civil registrations for over 300 communes are now online and free. One must click an agreement form before access is allowed. Nice site.

(05) Hautes-Alpes Capital: Gap.
Online: parish and civil registers through 1916, marriage banns, ten-year indices. Incredibly helpful people when contacted by e-mail; they really go out of their way to help further one's research.

(08) Ardennes Capital: Charleville-Mézières. Online: the ten-year indices with a list of all communes, land records, parish registers and civil registers from the 16th century to 1890. Military conscription lists from 1867 to 1921, with a new index that can be searched by the conscript's name.

(09) AriègeCapital: Foix. Finally! Online: Parish and civil registrations from 1551 to 1892, with ten-year indices up to 1902, and military conscription lists from 1884 to 1918.

(10) AubeCapital: Troyes. Online: ten-year indices, post cards of various towns and villages, land records, parish and civil registrations from 1552 to 1915, military enlistment records, probate indices (tables des successions), census returns from 1820 to 1931. Additionally, the Fichier Chandon has about 8000 names and biographical notes on families of the region. Works in Progress: 1) a collaborative index to the names on the census returns; 2) a surname index to the registrations -- now pushing 600,000 names.

(11) AudeCapital: Carcassonne. Online: parish and civil registrations from 1547 to 1872 and some ten-year indices. Just up: military conscription lists.

(12) AveyronCapital: Rodez. Online: parish and civil registrations from the 16th to the end of the 19th century. There is a plan afoot to put notarial records -- not just indices -- online gratis. NEW: military recruitment lists from 1887 to 1921.

(13) Bouches-du-RhôneCapital: Marseille. Online: parish and civil registers, land records, censuses from 1836-1931, old post cards, military recruitment registers from 1872 to 1912. Probably the worst AD website of them all.

(14) CalvadosCapital: Caen. Online: parish and civil records and the ten-year indices and annual indices. Also some interesting pictures of the Normandy invasion.

(15) CantalCapital: Aurillac. Online: parish and civil registers, ten-year indices, censuses, alphabetic indices to military recruitment lists and the lists as well, photographs, and notarial records and Holocaust records that relate to Cantal. In 2010, the website won a prize for the way it is possible for users to index collaboratively the civil registrations.

(16) CharenteCapital: Angoulême. Online: census records for 1842 to 1872, land records, teachers' notebooks, church inventories, old post cards of local towns, villages and sites. Parish and civil registrations are now online. At long last, the charge has been dropped and the site is now free to use.

(17) Charente-MaritimeCapital: La Rochelle. Online: parish, Protestant and civil registers, post cards, photographs of the Second World War, notarial records and entry lists (répertoires), military recruitment lists from 1859 to 1921, admiralty records, employment contracts for those sent to America (engagés) from 1606 to 1758, and quite a lot more.

(18) CherCapital: Bourges. As with many, but not all, you must create an account. This will gain you access to parish and civil registrations, censuses, maps, military enlistment registers and indices to them. They have embarked on a big collaborative indexing project.

(19) CorrèzeCapital: Tulle. Online: ten-year indices from 1802 to 1902, parish and civil registrations for all communes from their beginnings to 1902, EXCEPT for Brive-la-Gaillarde (see their own website: http://archives.brive.fr), census returns from 1906 to 1936, military recruitment lists, alphabetic death and will registrations to 1940, maps.

(2A) Corse-du-SudCapital: Ajaccio. All new! Online: Parish and civil registrations from 1548 to 1914, probate tables, land records and census returns. Very nice.

(23) CreuseCapital: Guéret. New website! Online: Parish and civil registrations, maps, posters from the Second World War, census returns, military recruitment lists, and -- very nice -- alphabetic indices to inheritances.

(26) DrômeCapital: Valence. Online: parish registers, ten-year indices, civil registers up to 1852, with some up to 1916, notarial archives, land records, military recruitment lists from 1865 to 1921, census returns from 1790 to 1911; also many finding aids. NEW: Protestant registers with indices!

(29) FinistèreCapital: Quimper. Online: Maps, parish and civil registrations census returns, military recruitment lists from 1860-1913. Parish registrations from 1772 to 1909 have been indexed on FamilySearch. NEW: local maps with place names in Breton.

(30) GardCapital: Nîmes. At last! Gard has its own website, previously having relied heavily upon TéléArchives at Brozer.fr which have the municipal archives of Nîmes and a large number of archives for Gard. On Gard's own website at the moment there are only the military recruitment lists from 1887 to 1915. Still, a fine beginning!

(31) Haute-GaronneCapital: Toulouse. Online: Land records, parish and civil registers, military recruitment lists, marriage contracts from Toulouse from 1501 to 1739, censuses, insinuations from 1693 to 1790. The site is maddening in that images cannot be adjusted; there is no possibility to zoom in or out. The 1872 and 1886 census returns for Toulouse are being indexed by FamilySearch. Updates are ongoing and the site is improving.

(32) Gers Capital: Auch. Online: Finding aids, historic maps, military conscription lists and census returns. Parish and civil registrations are not expected to be online before late 2015.

(33) GirondeCapital: Bordeaux. Online: Transcriptions of some parish registers, parish and civil registers and ten-year indices, maps, passport applications from 1800 to 1889, military recruitment lists from 1867 to 1921, register of deeds, wills, etc., 182 registers of the Admiralty of Guyenne, crew and passenger lists of departing vessels from 1683 to 1778. Click on GAEL to search. While there are some civil registrations for Bordeaux, most are on the website of the Bordeaux municipal archives.

(37) Indre-et-LoireCapital: Tours. Online: Parish registers, ten-year indices, land records, old post cards and records of wills filed, military conscription lists. NEW: Land registers for Chinon, Loches and Tours from 1800 to 1955.

(38) IsèreCapital: Grenoble. Much improved! Online: Ten-year indices, parish and civil registrations to 1892, census returns to 1906, military conscription lists from 1856 to 1921, scans of WWI family records, treasury records from the 13th to the 15th centuries.

(39) JuraCapital: Lons-le-Saunier. Excellent progress! Online: maps, postcards, historic photographs, parish and civil registrations from the 16th century through 1892, ten-year indices from 1802-1932, marriage banns and dispensation requests from the 18th century, military conscription lists from 1867-1921, registers of notarial records from 1694-1791, census returns from 1800 to 1911. This has to be one of the most helpful archives in the country.

(40) LandesCapital: Mont-de-Marsan. Lots of problems with this site, and many efforts to repair them, finally leading to a new site. Online: Parish and civil registrations, military recruitment lists, maps, town meeting minute books.

(43) Haute-LoireCapital: Le Puy-en-Velay. Online: Nice website which has parish and civil registrations, ten-year indices to same, military conscription lists, census returns, registers of notarial records. There is much, much more here than can be listed, so explore this site.

(44) Loire-AtlantiqueCapital: Nantes. Online: Parish registers, civil registers, censuses, land records, maps, old post cards, notarial records, military enlistment registers, WITH a surname index to them! Do not waste your time contacting by post or e-mail, as they brusquely refuse to be of any help at all.

(45) LoiretCapital: Orléans. Online: Civil registrations from 1833 to 1902 are gradually being put online. About one third of all communes have been added. However, there are some that will never be online, for they were destroyed during the Second World War. Many communes have their own websites with their parish and civil registrations found online there. Nice new website, much improved!

(46) LotCapital: Cahors. Online: Parish and civil registrations to 1902, including clerk's copies, census records, succession tables, military registers. This site has had some trouble but seems to be working properly as of November 2012.

(47) Lot-et-GaronneCapital: Agen. Much improved! Online now: civil registrations of the 19th century, census returns, many maps and land records, photographs, old post cards, unique funds of local history and customs, and the recordings of the accounts of some Spanish refugees.

(48) LozèreCapital: Mende. An all new website! Online: the parish and civil registers from the 17th century to 1902, photographs, maps, post cards, town histories, insinuations. Unusually, the municipal archives of the capitol city are at the same site. Nice little bit of cooperation, that.

(50) MancheCapital: Saint-Lô. Online: Historic maps, parish and civil registrations and ten-year indices, military conscription lists. Click on moteur de recherche, then on état civil. There is a nifty little video explaining how to use the search engine. Paris registrations from 1533 to 1906 for some towns have been indexed on FamilySearch.

(53) MayenneCapital: Laval. Online: parish and civil registers from the 16th century to 1882, ten-year indices, a data base created by volunteers of the details from the marriages of the 19th century, military registers, census lists from 1836 to 1906, land records, transcriptions of marginal notes from the parish registers. Mayenne is acknowledged as the gold standard of departmental archives online.

(54) Meurthe-et-MoselleCapital: Nancy. Online: parish and civil registers up to 1882, land records, military recruitment lists from 1887-1921. NEW: Census returns from 1872 to 1936.

(59) NordCapital: Lille. Online: Ten-year indices, parish and civil registrations, military recruitment lists, land records, 1906 census. If you are researching people from the capital, check the website of the Archives municipales de Lille at archives.lille.fr

(60) OiseCapital: Beauvais. Online: old post cards, parish maps, parish and civil registers, censuses, military registers. It is necessary to register with the site; this is free.

(62) Pas-de-CalaisCapital: Arras. Online: Lots of advice, plus ten-year indices to parish and civil registrations up to 1912, census records from 1820 to 1886, military recruitment records through 1921, land records.

(63) Puy-de-DômeCapital: Clermont-Ferrand. Online: All parish and civil records, a wonderful collection of land registry files, images of clerical seals and finding aids, census returns, maps, military conscription lists from 1859 through 1921. Nice new website.

(65) Haute-PyrénéesCapital: Tarbes. Online: Cahiers de doléances, census returns, military recruitment lists, maps, affidavits. The city of Tarbes has put up its parish and civil registers from 1611 to 1909 on www.archives.tarbes.fr. NEW: Parish registers from 1620 to 1792. Soon to enable collaborative indexing. Civil registrations from 1792 to 1915 are expected to be online in January of 2017.

(67) Bas-RhinCapital: Strasbourg. Online: parish and civil registrations and census records, now up to 1912. Also a very interesting discussion of an early 19th century manuscript of a history of Jews in Alsace, by Jacob Meyer. A new website has just been launched.

(68) Haut-RhinCapital: Colmar. Nice new website. Online: the heraldic devices for each commune, a list of those who died in the two World Wars, a list of all of the mairies (town halls), civil registrations from 1793 to 1892, ten-year indices and lists of Jewish names, and the census of 1866.

(69) Rhône Capital: Lyon. Online: Censuses from 1836, parish and civil registrations from 1527, military recruitment registers, maps, indices to notarial records, a very large collection on orphans. Collaborative indexing of both registrations and censuses is making this site incredibly useful. Rhône is the first department to allow the images of their ten-year indices and of their parish and civil registrations to appear on www.genealogie.com, though why you would pay there when you can get it free here is a mystery. For researching your ancestors from Lyon, see also http://www.archives-lyon.fr/archives/

(70) Haute-SaôneCapital: Vesoul. Online: Land records, census records, civil and parish registrations, conscription registers, bureaux de succession registers. Exceedingly helpful staff. Ten-year indices for many communes can be found on the website of the local genealogy group, Serv@nc'nautes :
www.servancnaute.fr

(71) Saône-et-LoireCapital: Mâcon. Online: land records, ten-year indices, parish and civil registers to 1902, censuses from 1836 to 1901, cahiers de doléances, succession tables, post cards, and a nice facility to see all that is available for each town. NEW: Indices to notarial records from 1790 to 1958.

(73) SavoieCapital: Chambéry. Online : maps, some ten-year indices, census records from the 16th to 20th centuries, parish and civil registers from 1501 to 1793 and from 1815 to 1860. Also: some old newspapers, indices to maps, posters, etc.

(74) Haute-SavoieCapital: Annecy. Online: NEW! Parish and civil registrations, censuses and military conscriptions from 1860 to 1940, and maps.

(75) ParisOnline: index cards to the surviving and reconstructed parish and civil registers to 1860, birth registrations from 1860 to 1912, marriage registrations from 1860 to 1940, death registrations from 1860 to 1986, military recruitment registers from 1875-1909; lists of the first names of children accepted into care from 1742-1909, ten-year indices for the civil registrations from 1860 to 1984. Beautiful website. An agreement has been signed to digitise the microfilm of the "reconstituted" parish and civil registrations prior to 1860 one day.

(76) Seine-MaritimeCapital: Rouen. Parish and civil registrations up to 1912 and in some cases up to 1935. Promised soon are maps. Passenger lists of French ships sailing from Le Havre are now online.

(78) Yvelines and the old Seine et OiseCapital: Versailles. Online: ten-year indices, parish and civil registrations to 1912 (to 1937 for some towns), military recruitment lists, censuses, land records, cahiers de doléances, community monographs (histories), remarkable indices to 114 towns in the arrondissement of Versailles civil registrations covering the years from 1843 to 1912 . Indices to notarial records dating from 1575 to 1899.NEW! Land ownership records -- matrices cadastrales.

(81) TarnCapital: Albi. Online: some parish registers, civil registers, ten-year indices, land records. It is necessary to register to use the site.

(82) Tarn-et-GaronneCapital: Montauban. Online: Ten-year indices, civil and parish registrations dating back to 1590; military recruitment lists, with alphabetic indices for some years.

(83) VarCapital: Toulon. Online: land records, census returns, parish and civil registrations, ten-year indices, medieval notarial records, architectural records, cahiers de doléances, records about the liberation of Var during WWII, finding aids, a "genealogy database", an index to military recruitment lists from 1887 to 1921 and transcriptions of more than a million pages from the register of land sales. Constantly being updated.

(85) VendéeCapital: La-Roche-sur-Yon. Online: parish and civil registers, censuses, notarial records, land records, old post cards, faire parts, notarial minutes and délibérations municipales, the World War I soldiers from the Vendée. Sadly, these archives have suffered two floods in 2016; the website explains the consequences in great detail. NEW: a database of 13,700 names of members of religious houses from the 18th century to 1903.

(86) VienneCapital: Poitiers. Online: parish and civil registers (now up to 1912), land records, the military registrations from 1867-1908, census lists (collaborative indexing in progress), tables of inheritance and probate records. Interesting: A collection of notes on cards made during the 1950s extracting further information on Protestants, abandoned children and more. NEW: notarial records!

(88) VosgesCapital: Épinal. Parish registers from 1526, civil registers to 1905, ten-year indices, censuses for the years from 1886 to 1906. NEW: military recruitment lists, land records from 1807 to 1913, and town histories (monographs des communes).

(89) YonneCapital: Auxerre. Online: parish and civil registers. Census records, and now military lists from 1867 through the First World War.

(90) Territoire de BelfortCapital: Belfort. A very nice site with plenty online: parish and civil registrations, censuses, military registrations, and historic maps. Additionally, local archivists have created an excellent site of indexed data from the parish and civil registrations. It is a bilingual site:
http://lisa90.org

(91) EssonneCapital: Évry. Online: Parish and civil registers, censuses, historic maps, and 184 village and town histories written for the 1900 Paris Expo, as well as indices to notaires' minutes.

(92) Hauts-de-SeineCapital: Nanterre. Online: maps (also for the old department of Seine from 1930 and for Seine-et-Oise from 1960); ten-year indices to the civil registrations through 1932 (but for one town); census records from 1891 to 1911, civil registrations for all towns from 1793 to 1918.

(93) Seine-Saint-DenisCapital: Bobigny. Online: no genealogical records are online, but there are lots of postcards and photos.

(95) Val-d'OiseCapital: Cergy-Pontoise. Online: Parish registrations from the 16th century to 1792, civil registrations from 1793-1900, ten-year indices, and census returns from 1817 to 1975, indices to probate records of Argenteuil from the 17th century to 1914, old newspapers.

(971) GuadeloupeCapital: Basse-Terre. NEW! Online: Civil registrations and military conscription lists. Site still under construction but very nice.

(972) MartiniqueCapital: Fort-de-France. This is actually the website of BNPM - The Banque Numérique des Patrimoines Martiniquais. Online: the actes d'individualité of freed slaves, 1848-1851, military conscription lists from 1889 to 1921. NEW: many, many new registers concerning the slave populations from 1770 to 1899.

(973) GuyaneCapital: Cayenne. Online: finding aids only. Preparation to put parish and civil registrations online is under way. There is an excellent list of links to other research resources.

(974) La RéunionCapital: Saint-Denis. Online: no records are online, but there is a nice new site for the archives.

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